


Does Add Dream of Electric Sheep?

by rainsonata



Category: Elsword (Video Game)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, slowly posting my fics from tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-05-07 19:10:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19215718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainsonata/pseuds/rainsonata
Summary: Mastermind can’t fall asleep, so he and Lunatic Psyker count sheep.





	Does Add Dream of Electric Sheep?

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted in February 23, 2015 on tumblr.  
> In honor of Lunar New Year 2015, year of the sheep/ram/goat.
> 
> Add - Mastermind  
> Lusa - Lunatic Psyker  
> Esper - Diabolic Esper

There was a burning sensation in Lusa’s eyes when he opened them the umpteenth time to check for the time. The Lunatic Psyker rubbed his eyes and glanced at the alarm clock across from his bed. 2:47 AM. The green numbers glowed in the dark, reminding him that he was still awake. Despite how late it was (or was it early?), the brawler’s mind was still bright and alert, aware of the loud ticking sound the clock in his room made. Once again, Lusa closed his eyes in another attempt to force himself into sleep. Minutes past, but his mind was still conscious, showing little signs of rest. He nearly screamed when he opened them again to see Add looking down at him. 

“Add?” Lusa had to stop himself from pushing the Mastermind away from him. “What are you doing here?” His voice was dry and hoarse, making his question sound more like a demand. 

For once, Add wasn’t wearing his everyday wear of that stuffy vest and instead wore a loose tank top and a pair of boxers. His pale hair was down, reaching to the middle of his back. His hair fell over one eye while the other gazed at Lusa with a nearly identical expression of exhaustion. He was standing at Lusa’s side of the bed, one hand on the mattress. The scientist still had his prominent shadows under his eyes, but they seemed more defined under the moonlight. 

“I thought you were asleep,” Add mumbled, but the brawler picked out his words and understood. 

“Sleep?” The other asked, looking at his change in attire. A rare sight to see from Add. He would usually fall asleep in his clothes at his desk or would be too tired to change and flop straight to his bed. 

“Can’t sleep,” Add said. “You look like you can’t either.”

“What gave you that idea?” Lusa rolled his eyes before closing them again, just enough to rest for a couple of seconds. What was Add doing here if he couldn’t sleep? His solution to such petty problems would be to work on his research until his eyes couldn’t stay open. What made today so different? 

Lusa was about to make a snide comment when Add said, “Thought…easier…” His words were hard to pick up. 

“Sorry?” The brawler sat up to face his counterpart at the same eye level. 

“I said,” Add gritted his teeth. “I thought it would be easier to sleep with you…” Red tinged on Add’s pale cheeks when he confessed. He looked away, eyes darting around the room as if to look for something else to focus on instead. 

“What do you want me to do? Count sheep?” Lusa snarked. 

“Sure,” he threw one hand in the air casually. “Go for it.”

This threw off Lusa. Wait, was Add serious? Counting sheep? How old was he? Lusa examined Add’s face for any signs of him joking, but the scientist’s facial expressions only hinted irritation. 

The brawler briefly recalled having sleeping problems as a child. It would be one or two in the morning and the insomniac child would still roll in his bed with a mind full of night horrors. Every shadow in his room was a demon waiting to consume him in the dark and every creaky noise in the house was a monster waiting to attack. His tired mother would come in to find him curled under the blankets before soothing him with lullabies and counting sheep to lure him to sleep. He would later climb to his parents’ bedroom and squeeze in between them. 

“Um…”

“Well?” Add rose one eyebrow, “Start counting.”

“Don’t boss me around,” the brawler glared at the scientist before mumbling, “This is stupid.” Add sat on the side of Lusa’s bed, not caring that he was taking up at least half of the bed’s space. Lusa grumbled and shifted his body to the left to make room for Add. He tossed a spare pillow at Add’s direction. Add caught the pillow, placed the it behind his back, and leaned against it, giving Lusa a bored look. 

“How about the first one to sleep loses?” The scientist revealed a smug smile, knowing fully well which of the two had a higher chance of staying up late again. His sleeping pattern is so irregular that power naps were more common for him than full night sleeps. This should be easy. 

A contest? Lusa thought the other was oddly…happy today. Something told him that Add consumed large amounts of caffeine after dinnertime. He thought that Add’s shaking hands were due to lack of sleep, but then he noticed that the scientist didn’t bark at him when he stepped into his room to borrow something. 

“And the winner?” There was going to be a catch there, wasn’t it? 

“The winner gets to do whatever they one with the loser,” Add said. 

“You’re on, nerd.” Lusa grinned. The berserker felt his counterpart’s eyes fall on him, tracing the outline of his body. He recognized that smirk forming on his lips. Lusa thought he had a decent idea of what Add had in mind when he made that challenge. It didn’t take much imagination to see what the scientist was thinking of when he looked at Lusa’s thin clothes clinging to his muscular figure. 

“Why don’t you start first?” 

“Why me?”

“What?” Add mocked him, “Scared I won’t fall asleep to your obnoxious voice? Fine, I’ll count then.” He didn’t even give Lusa time to respond. For some reason, this made Lusa impatient. “One, two, three, four, five sheep. Six, seven, eight, nine, ten.” 

Lusa looked at him quizzingly when Add suddenly stopped. “And?”

“I’m done.” He said simply. “You can do the rest.” That’s it? Lusa gave him a deadpan stare. “Your turn.”

Lusa scoffed. Of course he was going to make Lusa do the hard work while he sits on his lazy butt and do nothing. He straighten up his back and started counting, “One sheep, two sheep. Three sheep, four sheep, five sheep…”

It felt weird counting sheep of all things. The last time he counted sheep was when his mother was still alive and that was over a decade ago. Lusa’s voice nearly croaked when he counted out loud. He hasn’t had water since a little after dinner. The brawler ignored the strange looks he got from Add, who kept staring at him like he grew an extra head. What was his problem? 

“Still not asleep,” Add interrupted. He had his arms crossed with a look of boredom. Lusa glanced at the clock. It was barely three in the morning. Add was still sitting upright, leaning on the pillow behind him as a cushion. 

“Why the fuck does it matter if you’re going to fall asleep anyway?” Lusa complained. 

“I thought you said this was stupid.”

“This is stupid. I’m only doing this because both of us can’t sleep.” He actually didn’t want to see Add leave. Not after he went to Lusa because he was seen as a solution to Add’s sleeping problem. Maybe he should have told that to Add, but that would mean admitting that he liked Add’s company. The smug bastard won’t leave him alone for days if he was honest about something like that. 

“Your voice is annoying,” Add had one hand on the side of his head. “You’re putting me into tears.”

“Shut up and let me finish!” Lusa groaned, “Your voice is putting me to sleep already with all that nagging.”

“Good, then that means I’ll win this round.”

“Not a chance!” He huffed and started counting again. “Fifteen sheep, sixteen sheep, seventeen…”

Lusa thought he was winning when he saw Add’s eyelids start to waver, struggling to stay open. He caught Add moving his eyes around as if to keep them moving to avoid sleepiness. The scientist’s muscles lose its tenseness, arms lying on the side of his body relaxed. Add occasionally shook his head or made a deep sigh. 

“Twenty nine sheep…” Lusa started to yawn. 

“Thirty~”

What the…?

“So I heard you two couldn’t sleep~”

“Esper, what the hell are you-?” Lusa gawked at the time traveling peeking his head through a portal. The brawler’s sentence was cut midway through when he saw something being hurled at them. He instinctively hugged Add around the waist and tumbled off the bed with him, crashing into the carpet floor. 

“Baaaa,” the animal cried. Sitting on their bed was the fattest sheep Lusa ever lay his eyes on. Horns curled from its head and it had a white fleece coat that was in dire need of getting sheared. The sad creature was waving its legs in the air because it landed on its back. 

“You said you needed sheep,” Esper said, as if that would explain why a sheep was laying in their bed. 

“We were counting sheep, dumbass!” Lusa scowled at the time traveler. The sheep sent Lusa a blank look before bleating in helplessness. 

“Can I join?” Esper ignored the dirty looks his counterparts were giving him. 

“No,” Add said shortly.

“You hurt my feelings,” Esper faked a hurt expression. “Or am I interrupting something?” He looked at Add, who was still in Lusa’s arms. Add realized at the same time as Lusa and quickly pushed himself away from the brawler. Both men looked flustered, quickly turning away from each other as an attempt to ease the situation. 

Lusa thought Esper looked a little too content when he sat on Lusa’s bed with the sheep beside him. For an insane man who spent years trying to mess with time, Esper was surprisingly gentle with animals. He shook his head when he saw the time traveler petting and feeding the animal. 

“Go away,” Add complained. If he was annoyed before, then Add was now pissed off. The coffee must be wearing off because he was no longer smiling. “And get that thing out of here! It’s making this room dirty.” The sheep was still bleating in the background with that dumbfound expression. 

“Fine,” Esper cocked his head to one side. “You two are no fun.” He opened another portal next to him. The time traveler picked up the sheep and hurled it into the crack before jumping into it. From the way he held the animal, it was evident that the sheep was heavy with its fleece wool pushing its weight against him. With Esper and the sheep gone, the room was quiet again with only Add and Lusa. 

The brawler scrunched up his nose when he brought his head close to the bed. It smelled like sheep. He thought it would be better off if he and Add stayed off the bed for today. Lusa wasn’t up to listening to Add’s complaints about smelling like a farm the next day. 

Add sighed in relief of the time traveler leaving. His shoulders slouched down with his head looking up at the ceiling. He had his back leaning on a pillow that was propped against the wall, leaning his head on Lusa’s shoulder.

Lusa thought the whole setup was ridiculous. Counting sheep. Who thought of such silly things? This had to be the closest thing they have done that was considered normal. Well, as normal as it could get when you were living with two of your other parallel selves. He mindlessly ran his hand through Add’s hair. Lusa rubbed the strands of hair together with his fingers, amazed of how soft and silky it was compared to his bedhead hair. He noticed that Add wasn’t complaining the whole time he was playing with his hair. 

“I…” 

“What?” Lusa heard the scientist mumble something. 

“I…Lusa,” Add tilted Lusa’s head down to look at him. His bright eyes glowed slightly. “You look tired. I’ll count for you.” Although the room was dark, he could faintly outline Lusa’s figure. His fingers curled into Lusa’s shoulders with an uncertain look on his face. He didn’t see Lusa’s cheeks turning slightly pink.

“One sheep…” His voice was low, almost inaudible if it wasn’t for Lusa’s good hearing to pick it up. “Two sheep…three sheep…four…”

Somehow it was different this time. Add wasn’t rushing through his words in his usual irritated tone he often uses for things he found pointless. He made sure to extend each sheep to more than one second, maybe a few seconds at most. His articulation was clear, separating the words and dragging them out before moving onto the next sheep. 

As Add counted, Lusa found it harder to hear which number he was on. Each count was quieter than the last, making the berserker lean closer to Add to listen. At first Lusa’s face scrunched up from concentrating to his voice, strangely calming. Soon, his eyelids grew heavy, too sleepy to keep up with the count. He blinked for a couple of minutes before he gave up and finally closed them, welcoming the new darkness. 

“Forty seven sheep…forty eight…hm?” Add felt weight shifting to one side of his body. 

He turned to see Lusa resting his head on his lap. How did…? Without the facial lines he showed through his many animated expressions, his face looked peaceful when he slept. When Add touched one side of his cheek, he was surprised how warm it was compared to his. Add strangely felt at ease with the brawler resting on his lap, watching his chest rise and fall in rhythm to his heartbeat. 

“I win,” Add said quietly with a soft chuckle. He heard Lusa mumble an assortment of sounds in response. “Sweet dreams, Lusa.”


End file.
